There Will Come a Time

One

When Chris speaks, his hands flop around like dying fish on the deck of a ship. I try not to stare, but it’s impossible. They’re pale, scaly things, too small for his wrists, more like the hands of a kid than a man. He’s going on and on about how much progress he thinks we’ve made, about how I’m on my way toward health. I notice that he doesn’t say I’m healed. Everyone is always in recovery. No one is ever whole. I didn’t need six therapy sessions to tell me that I’ll never be whole again.

Mark, so what do you think?

Hearing my name, I lift my gaze and meet his eyes. What?

How have these sessions been for you?

I’m unsure how to respond. If I say they’ve been helpful, then it’s as if I’m admitting that he’s been right—that everyone’s been right—and I’ve needed counseling. If I say they haven’t, he’ll write something like, Needs more time, and then I’ll have to waste additional hours of my life with this guy and his stupid fish hands.

I take a different approach. It’s always good to talk things out. Not that I’ve done any talking. I’ve basically repeated Chris’s phrases back to him, telling him what I think he wants to hear. It’s easy, especially with adults who think listening means nodding and taking notes and making assumptions. Assumptions like Chris made when we met. He took one look at me—male, Filipino, teen, beanie, white plugs, red T-shirt, jeans—and said, What’s up? as if he was excited to practice his teen vernacular. I held out my hand and said, Pleased to meet you. I didn’t want to be there, but I’d been raised to respect authority. My formality must have thrown him, because he gave a thin smile after shaking my hand and motioned for me to sit in the black leather chair facing his desk.

Chris’s brown eyes perk up at my response. I’ve probably made his day.

Yes, yes, it is, Mark. I’m glad you can see that. He folds his tiny hands on the desk in front of him. I hope you’ll take the tools you’ve learned here and apply them with your family, your friends. Know that you’re not alone. I am always here if you need to talk.

I nod. Sure, at 110 bucks an hour.

Great. Chris gets up, signaling that our session is done. Can you send your father in on your way out?

In the waiting room, Dad stands in front of a painting of an ocean.

Um, Chris wants you, I say.

Dad glances at my eyes, then looks at the floor as he says, Okay. He pats my shoulder twice as he walks by, and closes the door to Chris’s office behind him.

I stand in his place across from the picture. The sea is dark blue and streams of sunlight break through a patch in the clouds, illuminating the water, making it sparkle. A couple of birds fly across the horizon. A lighthouse sits atop a cliff directing a beam of light at a small sailboat in the corner of the canvas. The caption underneath reads: AFTER THE STORM.

They say grief is an ocean measured in waves and currents, rocking and tossing you about like a boat stranded in the middle of the deep. But this is not true. Grief is a dull blade against the skin of your soul. It takes its time doing its work. Grief will slowly drive you crazy, until you try to sever yourself like some kind of wounded animal caught in a trap. You’d rather maim yourself and be free.

But you’ll never be free because you’ll always remember. I remember. I remember my twin sister, Grace. So I press up against the blade even harder.

Two

Everyone is going to die.

You could wake up, get out of bed, trip over a pair of sneakers on the way to the bathroom, fall down the stairs, and break your neck. You could get some crazy disease. You could cross the street and get hit by a car. You could have a brain aneurysm, or maybe choke on a piece of hot dog like Jimmy Trevino did during lunch freshman year. While most of us were standing there with our mouths open, thinking, Do something! Miles crashed through the tables and chairs, grabbed Jimmy around the middle, and jammed his fists up under Jimmy’s rib cage until the small piece of meat shot out of Jimmy’s mouth. Jimmy lived, but another minute and he could have been brain-dead, which is pretty much like being dead, or he could have been dead-dead.

The point is you die. Most of the time you don’t see it coming.

•  •  •  •

I used to cover my head with a black hoodie thinking it’d help me be invisible. But a seventeen-year-old male walking the streets alone in a hoodie automatically invites suspicion. I swear it’s why I was questioned once by an officer. I gave him some story about how I was on my way home, and he let me off with a warning. Sometimes I wear a baseball cap. The front hangs over my face like a duck’s bill, casting a shadow I try to hide in.

Tonight’s been uneventful. I walked underneath the bridge where the LA river trickles into the cement arroyo, steering clear of the narrow path that curves up alongside the back part of the bridge. I made the mistake of going that way a couple of months ago and ran into a homeless man and his knife. To be fair, it was the middle of the night and I probably scared the guy. I didn’t stick around to find out.

When I step onto the bridge, it narrows in front of me like a tunnel. The usual dizziness comes, what I guess is vertigo, along with the bile. I resist the urge to throw up. Taking deep breaths, I close my eyes and practice one of Chris’s meditation techniques that has actually proved useful. I simply relax and don’t stop any image or thought from entering my mind.

I’m back in the car. Grace is next to me. She’s singing along to the radio, like she always does. Her voice is a deep alto. We’re going . . . where are we going again? The movies? I can’t remember.

The tall lampposts, each lit with five small globes, string along the bridge like Christmas lights. I’m laughing. Then it’s as if there’s an explosion and there’s light everywhere, like I’m inside of it.

Mark, Grace says right before the music of screeching tires and scraping metal. Which is followed by the sounds of our car flipping and rolling. The crack of bone breaking and glass shattering.

My head hits a window. I’m hanging upside down, the seat belt cutting into my chest. And Grace—Grace is next to me. Her eyes are open, and she’s holding her breath. It is so quiet. I’m waiting, waiting to hear her breathe.

The image fades, and I keep moving forward on the bridge. I can’t believe it’s the last week of summer vacation. How did that happen? It’s not like I’m dreading school, it’s more like I’ve lost track of time. Or maybe time has lost track of me.

Cars occasionally drive by, but I’m mostly alone. I stop in the middle of the bridge, where a square concrete slab acts as a bench. I stand on it and reach up to touch the top of the black iron spikes of the suicide bars. I push down, but they’re not sharp enough to pierce the skin. Even though I’m not super tall, 5'10", I easily scale the rail and climb over.

On the other side, I hold the bars and lean forward, like I’m a skier who has jumped and now flies through the air. The water rushes below. It’s dark, but the light from the bridge and the surrounding buildings is enough to let me see the concrete below. If I hurl myself forward with enough velocity, maybe I can reach the trees in the arroyo.

It happened in the 1930s. Some distraught mom wrapped her baby girl in a blanket, kissed her, and threw her off the bridge before jumping after her. The mom died, but the girl was caught in the branches of a tree. She lived. I would have liked to have seen that. I picture the white blanket unraveling, trailing after her like white smoke, snagging in the tree.

I stretch my body out farther, though I hold tight to the rails.

Grace! I yell into the darkness.

No one answers back.

I try again. Grace! Not even an echo.

It should have been me, I whisper.

I close my eyes and see her again, that blank stare. The guilt overwhelms me, and I wish I were the dead one. Really, it would be so easy.

I try to feel it, that space between wanting to live and wanting to die, as if it’s tangible, someplace I can crawl into. I strain against the bridge and the air. Only my fingertips hold my weight.

The steel bar cuts into my fingers. My arms start to shake. I open my eyes.

Someday I will die, but not today. I climb over the bars and make my way back to the side road where I parked the car.

Three

I shut off the engine and look up at my house. It’s dark, except for the light in the kitchen, the one left on to scare away robbers.

Tap. Tap. Tap. I jump. Hanna’s face peers at me through the car window. Her brown hair is pulled back into a high ponytail.

What the hell? I open the door.

Nice seeing you, too, Mr. Grumpy Pants.

She nods, the sign for me to follow. I know I only have one choice, so I head after her. If I don’t, I’ll hear about it by not hearing about it, and Hanna’s silent treatment is almost as bad as hearing about it.

I glance at my house. No movement. That’s good. It means the parentals are still asleep. In a couple of strides, I’m even with her.

Couldn’t sleep? she whispers.

I shrug. She knows I go somewhere. She knows I come back. That’s about it. And that’s all she needs to know. I’m sure Hanna has her suspicions, but we don’t discuss them.

You?

Steve’s over.

Oh. Steve is her mom’s boyfriend, some super-off-the-chart-brainiac designer who works at JPL, as in Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They do all kinds of high-tech things, like make spacecrafts and send them to Mars. He’s decent, but it’s got to be weird knowing your mom’s having sex with the guy just a few doors down from your room.

Want to stay at my house? I ask.

She looks at me funny. Yeah, I’m sure your parents would go for that.

What? I’ll sneak you out before they even wake up. They sleep in on Saturdays. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t stayed over before.

True, but . . .

Right, I say. I know what she’s thinking. Hanna used to have sleepovers with Grace, which made more sense. We are all—no, we were all—the same age: Grace and me sharing the same birthday because of the whole twin thing, and Hanna only a couple of months younger than us. We would all hang out until it was time for bed, and then I’d hear the two of them giggling through the wall between our bedrooms. Alone on the other side, I always wondered what they were laughing about, jealous that I wasn’t in on the joke.

Hanna and I walk in the dark because there are no streetlights. The neighborhood is quiet. No one is peeking out at us through slightly parted curtains. Most people are asleep.

Or we could just stay up all night, she says.

Up all night? I have nothing going on tomorrow—today, actually—except a couple hours of bass practice. I could technically lose a night and still make it up before school starts. It’s not like I sleep much anyway. Chris gave me something to help, but it didn’t. I needed a brain wipe, not a sleeping pill. So instead I walk the bridge, or I put on headphones and plug in my electric bass and play until it’s morning. I probably wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. Besides, Hanna and I are overdue for an all-nighter, so I agree.

Hanna opens the gate that leads to her backyard. She tries to be quiet, but the hinges let out a slow whine. She freezes and her green eyes look at me all huge as if we’ve just been busted.

We wait, but nothing happens. There’s no Mom or Steve checking to see who’s breaking in. We tiptoe over to a large wooden swing hanging from a huge oak toward the back of her yard.

I sit on the swing first, holding it still so Hanna can sit next to me. She’s in her pj’s: a pink shirt and sweatpants. She rolls the waist down to rest just below her hips. I’m supposed to act like I don’t notice, but I do, every time. Just because we’ve grown up together doesn’t mean I don’t have a pulse. The white cord to her insulin pump, which she dubbed Pepe a couple of years ago, peeks out from underneath her shirt. She’s always complaining about having to wear Pepe, how it ruins her style, but it’s not like she has a choice. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was six, and she has to keep a close eye on her sugar level.

Years ago, her mom walked Grace and me through what to do if Pepe started beeping and we needed to help her. I basically have to make her drink something high in sugar, like orange juice—that stuff is loaded. It can be funny when Hanna’s low because she acts kind of loopy and stubborn, but it can get scary real fast. She had a seizure two years ago and an ambulance had to take her to the hospital. I teased her about faking being sick so she could get attention when she came home, but I was worried about her.

I glide the swing slowly back and forth with my feet. Hers don’t even touch the ground, so she pulls her legs up to her chest and hugs them with her arms.

What are you looking forward to the most? she asks.

I smile. She knows How are yous are banned from conversation, but she’s always finding a way to ask without saying the words. I should mind, but I don’t. I kind of like that she checks in on me. Tonight?

No, senior year, stupid.

Graduating. Not that I have any huge plans. I’m supposed to apply to music schools this fall. But I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.

Hanna punches me softly in the arm. I’m being serious.

So am I.

I’m looking forward to all the lasts.

The lasts? I ask.

Remember freshman year? When you started high school, there were all these firsts. This year, because it’s all ending, there’ll be all the lasts.

I’m quiet, so she continues like she has to explain it to me.

You know, the last time you attend an opening year assembly, the last time you have to take math, the last time you go to a football game, the last time you ditch class to go shopping with your best friend . . . Her voice wobbles and trails off. She doesn’t say Grace’s name, but I know that’s who she means. I stiffen next to her.

To say Hanna and I are different is an understatement. Half the time I don’t even try to pretend to understand her. She cries so easily, like at movies or when she hears about someone getting bad news or when she’s frustrated. Never sit in rush-hour traffic with her when she’s late.

She cried when she found out about Grace. She had come to the hospital and collapsed into her mom when Jenny told them. I watched her and felt nothing. I kind of envied her for making it look so easy. Hanna cried a few times and then it was over. It was as if all the painful stuff on the inside came out and she was fine. I didn’t know how she could do that, how she could just let it go. I didn’t cry when Grace died, still haven’t. I kind of went numb. At the funeral, I stood there amid all the tears, but I couldn’t do it. Everyone took my dry eyes as quiet stoicism.

If I feel anything, most of the time it’s anger. Chris tried to get me to cry in his office, but all I could think about was how his widow’s peak came to such a sharp point in the middle of his forehead. It looked like a perfect arrow to direct my fist.

I hope Hanna doesn’t start crying now. I don’t think I can take it.

Changing the subject, I ask, Remember the first time we stayed up all night on this bench? Though as soon as I say it, I kind of wish I could take it back.

Yeah.

Eighth grade. The year I got into the school for the arts. The year Hanna and I almost kissed.

Dad moved out.

I nod, waiting for it to hit.

You tried to kiss me. She says softly. She’s looking at her toes. Her nails are some dark color.

"I gave you a consolation hug. You were the one who turned your face as I bent down. In fact, I could say you tried to kiss me."

She laughs. Oh man, that was embarrassing.

Yes, I was embarrassed for you, I tease.

Shut up, she says.

I push us faster on the swing, suddenly a little embarrassed for bringing it up.

I wasn’t embarrassed that night. I was confused. It was late and Hanna sent me a text about her dad and asked if I could come over. Normally she would have texted Grace, but Grace was in Long Beach visiting our mom. I wasn’t interested in spending two weeks with Mom and her new husband. Grace said I was being stubborn, for not wanting to go, but I didn’t care. In my opinion, Mom made her choice years ago when she left. I didn’t see the need to facilitate the façade, but Grace, well, she was the more forgiving one of us.

So I ran over to Hanna’s and she was waiting for me in the backyard on the bench. She looked so small and scared sitting there. She was crying. I sat next to her and listened to her talk about her parents, about how she couldn’t imagine life without her dad in the house.

My parents split up when Grace and I were seven. Mom left on a Friday after her nurse’s shift at the hospital. I remember because we had plans to go camping that weekend, and Dad made Grace and me stay at Tita Christie’s instead. We didn’t understand what had happened. I still don’t. All I know is that she left us.

Mom gave Dad full custody and eventually met this guy Will and moved about an hour away. Dad married Jenny a couple years after the divorce. The funny thing is that they both fell for someone white, not that I have anything against white people. They probably figured they’d tried marrying a Filipino first, and since that had been a mess, why not?

I could relate to Hanna’s drama of screwed-up families. Most of the time our piecemeal family was cool. We did get Jenny out of the deal. When she first met us, Jenny brought me a CD of my favorite bass music and Grace some fancy colored pens. We liked her right away. At least I did. She knew about Edgar Meyer, an amazing bassist, and that gave her instant points. Later I found out that Dad had given Jenny the tip. Grace took a little longer to win over because I think she was still holding out for Mom to come home.

Sometimes it sucked. Mom and I still weren’t on the best of terms. But I always had Grace. I never had to go through